Being widely used to fix medical devices such as catheters, as a wound-covering material, and for other purposes, the film dressing is a kind of adhesive sheet comprising a film adaptive to the skin and an adhesive layer provided on one primary face of the film.
Any film dressing, while in the state before use (during the distribution stage and the like), normally assumes a multilayer laminated structure comprising the aforementioned adhesive sheet and the following elements (a) and (b) added thereto.
(a) A release liner that covers the adhesive layer face (adhesive face).
(b) A carrier laminated as a separable support layer on the other primary face (back face) of the film (the carrier is to confer rigidity to the adhesive sheet so as to prevent the handlability of the adhesive sheet from worsening even with the removal of the release liner).
In applying a film dressing to the skin and the like, the release liner is first removed to expose the adhesive face of the adhesive layer, the film dressing is applied to the skin, (including fixation of a medical device such as a catheter or gauze), thereafter the carrier is separated to complete the operation of application.
However, when the present inventors extensively investigated the actual status of use of conventional film dressings, the problem shown below was revealed.
Since film dressings are used mainly in medical practice settings, the aforementioned series of steps of the operation of application is usually performed while wearing rubber gloves for medical use and the like. The aforementioned problem is a problem with a lack of the ease of carrier separation while wearing rubber gloves because of the absence of an adequate holding margin due to a thin carrier.
Over the above-described problem, in Patent Document 1, the carrier is divided at the central portion thereof (the dividing line is referred to as a “mutually butted part”), and the “mutually butted part” is further covered with a “support release piece”, in an attempt to facilitate the operation of carrier separation.
However, with the configuration described in the publication, only one of the two divided sections of the carrier is separated by the “support release piece”, whereas the other section of the carrier remains as it is, and is still difficult to separate.
Another embodiment is available wherein a holding margin or the like is formed on the outer periphery, without providing a dividing portion in the carrier, and the carrier is removed entirely from the margin. However, that embodiment does not pose a problem with regard to waterproofness and the like when a wounded area is simply covered with a film dressing, but when a catheter or the like is to be fixed, carrier rigidity can prevent sufficient fixation to pose major problems such as the drop of the catheter.
Meanwhile, taking note of release liner manipulability, because the operation of application is performed while wearing rubber gloves for medical use and the like, as in the above-described case of a carrier, the problem of poor manipulability (handlability) arises due to the attaching of the rubber gloves to the adhesive face exposed upon elimination of the release liner.
Patent Document 1: JP-A-2003-339762